Spring | Summer 2018 A REPORT FROM THE 2017 ANNUAL MEETING MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT A CRS EXPERIENCE: MYSTERY By Fr. Jim Rosenthal At celebrations of Holy Communion every Sunday across the An- glican world clergy announce to the people assembled, “Let us pro- claim the mystery of faith.” So, we declare our faith in the passion and victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. All divisions cease and the simple act of receiving consecrated bread and wine, vividly remind us we are one The Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle bread and one body. Indeed, it is this mystery that allows us to fall in love with the beauty of God’s world and God’s people. A LOOK BACK The Compass Rose Society was the dream of the then new Secretary General John Peterson from Jerusalem, and with the blessing our then A LOOK FORWARD Father in God, Lord George Carey, a celebration of diversity became a true experience for those responding to the call for members. Along I like to think of the Compass Rose Society with the revival of Anglican World magazine, my enthusiasm for my as an “old school” mission society. We give as ministry as communications director began to swell, and I am proud stewards so that its global leaders and missionaries that personal friends, Miriam Hoover, H. Gregory Smith, the Diocese can shape the mission and ministry of the wider of Chicago (Under Bishop William Percell), David Lochman, and Communion. William Willimon, Theologian and others were some of the charter members of the CRS, who caught the Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry, said global fever and thus to this day that gem of a family we call Anglican/ to me not long ago, “It isn’t what you get done Episcopal prospers in the work and ways of the gospel. “Thanks, CRS” that is important in leadership but rather what you is one of the theme songs and we sing with joy. allow others to do. Lots of people get that mixed up.” The Compass Rose Society helps other people make a difference for the Gospel around the world. In this way, as we look back at our stewardship over the years, we should give glory to God for the work done in his name as in our 24th year we have reached the $10 million mark ahead of schedule. In 2017, our total gifts amounted to $558,440 for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Secretary General and the Anglican Communion Office. Continued on page 14 Grace before dinner. Continued on page 2 1 Continued from page 1 ~ 2017 Annual Meeting Highlights 2 1 3 1. Mrs. Welby greets members and guests before dinner at the CRS annual meeting. 2. Dinner in the Lambeth Palace Library. 3. Leaving the Archbishop’s Chapel in Lambeth Palace following Compline. Any CRS event shows the beauty of God’s rainbow people, Virginia Seminary, Episcopal Church Foundation, and others are so designated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This past November, helping bring shared learning and shared teaching to people people from Canada, Hong Kong, UK, USA and beyond came around the Anglican Communion. together in London to hear from staff, such as the encouraging Our Archbishop has given the work and witness of the words from Adrian Butcher, director of communications. We are Anglican Communion a priority in his call for reconciliation in good hands! and a renewed proclamation of sharing the good news with We pray as Anglican Christians for “all sorts and conditions of those who have never heard its call. The recent appointments at men (women).” In that task, we are confronted with the need to be the ACO, Lambeth Palace, Anglican Centre in Rome and more loyal to our calling of sacrifice as portrayed in these days of Lent. show his vision The challenges to the CRS community were many at the The CRS experience can be a shared experience. Our prayer 2017 meeting. In the luxury of the old National Liberal Club, we is that others will be compelled to enable the good work begun heard the plight of places in varying degrees of physical need. in each baptized follower of Christ. The “telling the story” of our brothers and sisters of South Su- We are in the midst of that extra-holy season of Lent. I wonder dan is an ongoing need and pray, an ongoing commitment. if the practice of fasting (our Muslim friends have much to show Archbishop Justin is now calling on us to be leaders in bringing us!) can help renew us physically and spiritually as those of us the 2020 Lambeth Conference together by providing travel costs gathered in the historic Archbishop’s Chapel were able to renew that would aid the traveling bishop and their spouse. our pledges for CRS’s work. The evolving of a CRS Endowment was also on everyone’s A holy Lent means an Easter of extraordinary victory is on heart and mind throughout the meeting, and real progress has the way. God bless the CRS. been made. The staff reports were enlightening but also pointed to the limited resources that are part of the reality-check at the ACO and are areas that have seen CRS make a real difference. Members Fr. Rosenthal was formerly on the staff of the Anglican Communion Office of the CRS, through institutions like Trinity Church, Wall Street, in London and is now, Priest at St. James Merton. 2 NOTES CONFESSIONS OF AN FROM ACCIDENTAL PILGRIM ASIAPAC By Alice Wu “Pilgrimages are life-transforming.” Cliché? Fortunately for me, I had CRSers (Joey Fan, Granda & Well...Before my first trip to the Holy Land, that looked, Stephen Hou) at St. Mary’s Church Hong Kong who had gone sounded and smelled like a cliché. on the CRS Holy Land Pilgrimage in March 2014 to consult with. They were most helpful. Joey gave me an extra book to Perhaps it’s this post-Facebook world that we live in. I’ve read, and they all told me, “You’re in for a real treat. They’re Holy seen photos of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Western Land pilgrimages, and there’s The Rev. Canon John Peterson Wall, and other top sights on so many Facebook posts that Holy Land Pilgrimage. Nothing quite compares to it!” they, too, have become, well, commonplace (pun intended, On my way to Tel Aviv, it dawned on me that I was feeling of course), instagram-ily accessible. That aura of the sacred nervous — expectant, but of what exactly, I didn’t know. I and mysterious of these actual geographical sites seem to fade had read all the books on the reading list, mentally prepared with every “like” on every substandard version of the same im- myself to be a total embarrassment wailing at “the wall”, done ages we see in glossy travel guides and National Geographic. my research and knew that the commencement of our pilgrim- “What is it like?” Whenever I ask those who had gone on age coincided with the end of the intense month of prayer and one this question, I have always gotten this answer or some religious devotion, Ramadan, for Muslims, and the closing of other form of it: “It’s amazing/awesome!” followed by “You the Shabbat for Jews (in other words, tense), packed enough have to be there to understand.” This “pilgrims only” exclusive sunscreen for an entire village, worked up the courage to face club had sounded to me a lot like an even more “holier than passport control at Ben Gurion, and prepared to be — yes, as thou” variation of “holier than thou.” cliché as it is — entirely transformed. Looking out over Jerusalem toward the Temple Mount. 3 I was soon going to be a bonafide Pilgrim, charged at the It’s something I’ve grown to be very comfortable with — an eleventh hour with the task of doing a bit of reporting on identity I’ve embraced. To live and observe from “the periph- behalf of the group of pilgrims. I knew my fellow pilgrims eral” was a privilege, a gift, to me. So for me, to be in “the from Hong Kong, couldn’t wait to see CRS president Bishop center of the world,” where for thousands of years, people Andy Doyle (there wasn’t going to a dull moment), was excited have vied to be the guardians of that center, I knew it would to meet new friends but was also unsure about filing stories be profoundly interesting. during the trip. I mean, Geoffrey Chaucer knew his pilgrims On our first full day of the pilgrimage, we were driven — they were constructions of his genius and imagination! For up Mt. Scopus for the view of the Judean desert. As we were a first-time pilgrim, being tasked with a job that requires returning to our coach, we saw that a team of Israeli law en- performing at a certain level of dissociation to deliver seemed forcement officers were close by. As we approached our coach like an impossible challenge, especially when the Most Rev. to board, some of us were taunted by them — a clear message Josiah Idowu-Fearon described this pilgrimage as “[pilgrims] that we did not belong and that, we are to be acutely aware of from across the Commu- why that is, based on our nion… demonstrat[ing] race, our gender and our the spirit of ‘walking to- faith. That left an impres- gether’!” But as I was sion, as commonplace going to be trekking on as these incidents are in the ground our Lord all parts of the world.